Bank says ethanol not replacement for oil
Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Etc., Ethanol, Green Culture, Manufacturing/Plants
UBS, a Swiss investment bank, released a statement saying that ethanol is an "insufficient" replacement for oil. Based on a study initiated by the bank, ethanol production at its current rate would total around 30 billion gallons of fuel by 2020. Unfortunately, oil consumption for vehicles alone totaled 320 billion gallons just for 2005. The bank concludes the only way ethanol could be a viable alternative would be production from many sources since current crops such as sugar and corn are subject to seasonal variation. Such multi-source production, continued the bank, is near impossible since it would require companies to set up production multi-nationally. Current high tariffs and other market restrictions by individual countries currently make such a scenario near-impossible.
[Source: Macauhub]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-25-2006 @ 1:10PM
Howard Lee Harkness said...
The real reason that ethanol is not a viable replacement for oil is that oil is used in the production of ethanol, and there is negigible -- if not negative -- energy balance in the process (which is the reason --DOH!-- that ethanol is not used to provide the energy needed to manufacture ethanol). IOW, ethanol is not really "green" in any meaningful way (except for Political Correctness). Also, ethanol is not economically viable without government subsidy (or coercion).
Same problem for hydrogen, only more than an order of magnitude worse.
Biodiesel, OTOH, has a demonstrably large energy gain (enough so that biodiesel can be profitably used in the production, completely replacing oil), and has several other advantages over ethanol -- not the least of which is no degradation of performance or fuel mileage in existing standard engines. Also, at $3/gal or more for gasoline or diesel, Biodiesel has enough profit potential that it doesn't need any government subsidies.
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8-28-2006 @ 9:53AM
CarGuy37 said...
I totally agree Howard... and worst of all there was the link "Chevrolet and MTV bringin' ethanol to the 2006 MTV Music Awards". Great. This is exactly what we need, a bunch of uneducated tone-deaf-but-at-least- I'm-hot-so-you-should-heed-my-opinions spreading misinformation to the masses. I can't wait until ethanol prices skyrocket because the Middle-East started charging more for oil.
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